eLearning has a satisfactory set of options if your goal is
information delivery or procedural training, but what about creating meaningful
eLearning for complex skill development or for the not-so-procedural kinds of
problems that show up more and more in the workplace? What about creating
learning for those situations where your SME can’t tell you what good
performance looks like except to say, “Well, you know it when you see it”?

In situations like these, frameworks from complexity science and
the science of expertise development can help you diagnose complex learning
problems, and they also help point to eLearning design strategies that can
actually address and support complex skill development. In this session, you’ll
discuss how variables like frequency of use, tacitness or explicitness, and
level of automaticity affect skill development. You’ll find out how to use
these variables and models to craft effective eLearning design and assessment
strategies for complex learning.

In this session,
you will learn:

How to diagnose a complex skill
problem

How to use complexity models such as
the Cynefin framework for learning

How to use alternative assessment and
feedback strategies for complex learning environments

How to use learner self-assessment as
a tool for complex learning

Audience:Intermediate to advanced designers and managers. Some instructional
design experience is recommended.

Technology
discussed in this session:eLearning-specific examples, the Cynefin
complexity model, and Ericsson’s skill development research.

Julie Dirksen

Instructional Strategist

Usable Learning

Julie Dirksen, an instructional strategist with Usable Learning, is a consultant and instructional designer with more than 15 years’ experience creating highly interactive eLearning experiences for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to technology startups to grant-funded research initiatives. She’s interested in using neuroscience, change management, and persuasive technology to promote sustainable long-term learning and behavior change. Her MS degree in instructional systems technology is from Indiana University, and she’s been an adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is the author of Design For How People Learn.